Under Your Eyes
by Andrea Weiling
Summary: Introspective, one-shot. Rei thinks about the BladeBreaker's fearless team leader and his sickening night job. NOT yaoi.


Under Your Eyes  
  
The Chinese have a way of determining sickness. Perhaps westerners think it's very impractical because it's based solely on outward observations, but I, as a Chinese who has studied such methods, think it's rather useful. Sickness, as the Chinese say, is when there is an imbalance of ki in your body, the essence that flows through your veins. If there is a clog somewhere (so to speak), then that part of you will be affected. Long-term diseases come from mistreatment of a once not-so-serious imbalance. On the other hand, practiced Chinese chiropractors are expensive and hard to come by.  
  
They also believe in what I call "face divination". They can tell, just by looking at the features of your face, whether you will be rich or poor, if you are stubborn or if you respect your elders, if you are belligerent or if you are passive. Somewhere I found that if you have purple under your eyes, it's not a good thing.  
  
I know what you've been doing, Kai. I want you stop it NOW.  
  
A part of me wants to deny that you do this. You ARE our team leader, you are the strongest of us all with your impassive face and your iron grip on the progress of our abilities. Not only are you a child, but you are an insightful, much-too-mature child who knows just how to bring out the best in each of us. Often I thought that the other four of us couldn't have been chosen for this team without you having a word in it first. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been you who had chosen the teammates for the BladeBreakers because you knew exactly just how well we would work together, complement each other.  
  
Do you know what purple under the eyes means? It's not only that you're tired in the morning because you've had a nightmare before - don't think that we don't see you at night when you jerk upright and throw your face in your hands? At those times we see you and we all want to collectively say, Hey, we're here, why are you still hiding? There's nothing out there that can possibly hurt you when all of us are around. Perhaps, then, your insight has failed you in this category, and not that I blame you. You seemed to have been sick at heart by three years old and emotionally blocked by the time you were five. Yes, we know you're not strong as you think we believe. And perhaps you have that drawn into the equation as well.  
  
Are you a genius or what? Everything is precalculated in your mind, wins and losses. While you show chagrin when we lose, somehow I never seem to believe it's genuine. Have we been set up on your own agenda, somewhere? That sneaky side of you seemed to have grown stronger after the Russian Tournament. You walk off even more lately. You don't eat as much. You don't cry out in your sleep anymore because your eyes are always open, watching more than the ceiling. Are you imagining us as champions? Do you see yourself beaten on the streets? Are you afraid of what might happen "after the BladeBreakers"?  
  
Don't worry. We're here. The only problem is, you don't quite see that.  
  
You ARE tired. You stagger in at two in the morning, and I can see those purple bags under your eyes. Insomnia bags are a sick gray/black. Yours are purple. They represent a major influx in hormonal change, and that -  
  
Why a BladeBreaker by day and a whore by night?  
  
You're supposed to FIGHT THIS like the rest of us, aren't you? Like we fight for our spirit of friendship and camaradie and teamwork. And what are you doing this for? MONEY? But money never pertained to you! All accounts were always held by the Chief and Mr. Dickinson managed all the deposits into our bank accounts if they were needed, like occasional allowances, or something like that. Don't tell me that that rolled-up cylinder of bills is what you sell your body for, because I think we know you better than that.  
  
Ha! And you are pretty, prettier than the rest of us. I even think you might become a world-class whore if you tried, since you pretty much succeed at anything that you put your hand to. And that would give you a bit of power, now, wouldn't it? Once again that disease would catch you like it did before with Black Dranzer.  
  
And somehow, when you finally face us and you see we've gotten past the denial that you would do something like that, you'll see that the biggest, most terrifying question in our eyes is: Aren't we enough?  
  
/ \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ / \ Author's note:  
  
Well, hi. I'm pretty much new to the Beyblade thing. . .just started watching it. Hope I haven't gotten any facts wrong, and if you ask me I don't know where the heck to time this thing (I mean, between which episodes). I haven't seen the ending yet, but from what I've heard, is the Russian tournament the last thing in the anime? *shrugs* Well, hope you liked it.  
  
Andrea Weiling 


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